Weekly One-Shot #111: Truth or Dare

Ultimate Citizen Dawn versus the Freedom Five. Yikes.

Miracle Mint for me, all thanks to AZ. Once he’s set up fully, the sheer amount of damage he can dish out and heal up is staggering. Especially with extra plays or powers thanks to incapacitated teammates. Two Impales on Dawn, Thermal Shockwave, and keeping his HP high are critical.

When I won, Bunker was at 2, AZ was at 16, the rest of the crew was down. Dawn never flipped.

Reconcile yourself to losing your entire opening setup, though. Bunker’s Tactical Uplink is critical to having a setup at all.

And get an Eyepiece out. Control the deck–i know I buried an Aurora.

Oh, and given the name, I suggest the latter.

Looks like you beat me to the punch posting it. I'll copy my comments.

Mint here, but got lucky with a good choice on my first play. Given that you have to discard all but one card of your starting hand, I chose Wraith's Impromptu Invention to get an Infrared Eyepiece out and immediately used to to send Citizen Dare to the bottom of Dawn's deck. That eyepiece also saved me from a Devistating Aurora soon after. Best card in Wraith's deck?

Bunker did not do too much except help other heroes get their cards out. Legacy took care of the T-rex that I left out for a few turns too long and supplied the other characters with extra plays. Wraith and Bunker got taken down around midgame and Legacy followed a turn or two after. Tachyon kept herself alive through Hypersonic Assults, and waited until an Obsidian Field came out. She then followed it with a Lightspeed Barage and blitzing for 8 or so cards. The real MVP was Absolute Zero. He got his equipment out, sucked up the Cold damage from Citizen Winter, threw his impales on Dawn and tanked his way to victory.

Final HP- Legacy/Wraith/Bunker-0, Tachyon-5, AZ-10

Best card in Wraith’s deck - perhaps the whole game - is undoubtedly Impromptu Invention!

I had a surprisingly straightforward mint, with the whole team left standing. I used a combination of Tactical Uplink and Overwatch to get Abs set up with his Modules and Coolant Blast, and thenceforth kept him as highest HP so that whenever I blasted a Citizen, he took the fire damage and just healed up again. (I don’t think Citizen Dare had the effect on the heroes that he’d hoped…) That Coolant Blast dished out a huge amount of damage on Absolute Zero’s turn.

Throw in double Impales and that aforementioned Infrared Eyepiece, and I had it.

Mint. Was a little dicey in the middle when dawn was playing 2 cards a turn and I was terrified I would hit an aurora but got lucky apparently. 

Again Wraiths early Eyepiece and AZ's Subzero Atmosphere were amazing. The number of discards that ended up coming up for me meant that Legacy's extra card play outside of the first two rounds was underused. Have to love a game that ends with AZ doing 60 damage to Dawn because your cold snap killed all her minions. 

10/10 would play ultimate Citizen Dawn again.

Uncomfortable mint. Lost Legacy due to being too happy with Take Downs, AZ was MVP. Oh boy is getting that Eyepiece out important, though. And make sure, when the Blinding Blast hits, you evaluate your hands with an eye to "what one card do I want to be able to play?"

Fairly straightforward mint. At the start, I used pretty much everyone to setup Absolute Zero and a little bit of extra card draws for Tachyon. I grabbed the Eyepiece just in time to miss the Devestating Aurora and then controlled the deck pretty easily after that.

Bunker used his initial power all game to help set everyone up. Tachyon did some damage at the start to kill off citizens and was fairly quiet afterward. Legacy used Lead from the Front and along with Smoke Bombs from Wraith, all villain damage, most of it fire and ice, went back to Absolute Zero.

I let Dawn flip and then sat tight while Return with the Dawn and Channel the Eclipse brought out the citizens in quick order. It only took a few turns to get 5 extra citizens out. Citizen Winter, Citizen Hammer and Citizen Dare were among the returned recruits. I got rid of the ongoings and all the citizens except those three. And then Absolute Zero went on a rampage. Coolant Blast hit Citizen Dawn for 38 points and then when Citizen Hammer took his next turn, all the damage went flying back to Citizen Dawn. Hit points for everyone were in the 11-18 range.

I feel like Tachyon could have contributed more. She did damage when needed and took out the ongoing cards when needed. She had more than one Fleet of Foot come out which really makes sure everyone else is set up. But I didn't realize how close I was at the end to finishing off Citizen Dawn and she could have bursted for a lot of damage and ended the game a lot earlier, especially once Inspiring Presence came out.

Absolute Zero seems to be extra deadly with the Freedom Five variants. Except for Tachyon, the whole Freedom Five is about speeding up your setup and once Absolute Zero gets setup with Smoke Bombs nearby and the enemies are doing any fire or ice damage, it's pretty much game over.

Mint.

You know what's even better than an Infrared Eyepiece?  TWO Infrared Eyepieces!

Wraith used a Utility Belt and 2 Eyepieces to keep Citizen Dawn playing cards like Healing Light and Luminous Leadership and ongoings that Wraith could take out with a Grappling Hook, and Take Down gave tempo to the heroes as well...so Dawn wasn't too much of a threat. Once the heroes drilled through Citizen Truth, they all fell like dominoes.

I left the T Rex out too long, I think--dealt the team quite a bit of damage, and the Plant Life and Raptors hurt a bit too. Tachyon was thankful for the Obsidian Field, though! She Blitzed right through that.

Bunker and Wraith fed cards and plays to others, Wraith controlled the Villain Deck, Legacy Motivated for damage and healing, Tachyon had a couple of big Blitzes, and Absolute Zero did the bulk of the damage....being fully set up and bombarded with fire the whole game.

At the end, Bunker 5HP, Wraith 4HP, Legacy 3HP, Tachyon 6HP and Absolute Zero 4HP.

Surprisingly easy mint, for an Ultimate Dawn.

Taking the advice of the description and using AZ as bait, I used my Impromptu Invention to pull Smoke Bombs and got AZ's Null-Point out first round. Dare coming out killed Truth so didn't have to try to burn him down, and Winter ended up healing AZ for a lot with Smoke Bomb redirection. Followed by Transducer and being the highest HP, AZ did what AZ does best.

A few turns of building up after that (with a helpful Infra-Red eyepiece pulled a few turns later) and I had a comfortable cycle going. Either Dawn couldn't deal damage, couldn't play cards, or played something easily taken care of. Left out Return with the Dawn and Spring to keep her from flipping, waited for some damage boosts from the environment, and Lightspeed-Blitzed Dawn down from 50 hp to 0.

Ended everyone at least mid teens.

Funny notes:

Lightspeed Barraging for 7 damage is silly, but if it kills Truth in one shot (on Bunker's turn no less), then do it!
I think I never actually used Legacy's base power. Just Motivational Charge all day
FV Wraith + Utility belt + Infrared-Eyepiece = insane card draw

Y'know, usually Overwatch is so great for the out-of-turn card plays, but between the discarding and Bunker's power, I was never really hurting for them, so I got way more use out of its environment control option.

I'm just imagining Legacy getting the T-Rex to chase him, then lifting up a section of ground, ole-ing it inside, and laying it down after the dinosaur, putting it to beddy-bye. :V To say nothing of how he just shuts off a volcano…

Comfy mint, everyone above 10 except for FFAZ, who dealt himself 19 cold damage while at full health to deal a Citizen Dawn at 1hp 21 damage.

Lowest anyone got was Wraith at 6hp, and she healed up to 10 between an Inspiring Presence and a Overwatched Suture Self (I really didn't have anythng better to play on that).

Burned her down in 4 rounds, all heroes in the teens. Could have arranged AZ to finish a little higher, but I chose order poorly on Dawn's second turn and three people took 5 damage instead of AZ getting hit twice and healing from one of them. Eyepiece was essential. I passed card plays as I saw fit, mostly to AZ and Tachyon. After Obsidian Field hit, I saw that I could burst her down in one round, so I did (Tachyon LSB for 12 and base power for 22, AZ did a pile from double Impale, Cold Snap, and a mod Realignment all boosted by Focused Apertures, Legacy Back Fist Strike for 5 and passed Wraith a Throat Jab for 3, Wraith used Razor Ordnance, etc.)

Easy Mint. Also by far the easiest Dawn game I’ve played (much easier than the Freedom Five Varients vs Ultimate Dawn fight I played a few weeks ago).

She never flipped, Eyepiece did its job, Hypersonic assault and Takedown limited Dawn’s involvement and Absolute Zero gets set up pretty quick despite all the discard at the beginning of the game letting him deal with Dawn’s challenge power and Citizen Winter pretty well. Could have ended it quicker with Blitz, but waited a turn too long and Dawn didn’t stay up long enough to get back to her turn...

MInt, despite some mistakes.  Let Dawn flip, let an Aurora wipe my stuff, but the Citizens that came out were pretty forgiving, and AZ tanks fire damage like nobody's business.  Once she flipped back, Dawn didn't last long.  It turns out that F5 Tachyon deals a great deal of damage when Inspired by Legacy and hanging out in an Obsidian Field.

Made some stupid mistakes (notably, an outright misclick caused me to discard Wraith's Impromptu Invention on turn 1, and keep her Micro-Targeting Computer... yeah.) and questionable strategic decisions in Game 1, which lead to me getting hit with Aurora and shortly thereafter being buried under a heap of Return with the Dawn value.

In game 2 I avoided these mistakes, got out Eyepiece and built up Absolute Zero... at one point I hit Dawn with a 41-point Coolant Blast. That didn't finish her off, but she didn't last long after, either. Near Mint.

Mint, similar story to everyone else. Legacy died, everyone else was low. Except AZ.

As for Impromptu Invention being the best card in the game… I don’t know. Team Communication is pretty great.

But it’s definitely up there.

Team Communication can be annoying if you haven't played all four Unique Capabilities and it pulls the signatures in your hand.

That’s why you play them first